One Way Or Another
by Athena Evarinya
Summary: Determined to settle the turmoil in her heart, Usagi makes a startling discovery.


She knew it was wrong.

It was a violation of the unspoken rule between the Senshi and him, but she couldn't seem to stop herself. While her mind kept yelling stop, her body was moving on its own. No that wasn't true. Half of her mind was yelling stop, while the other was urging her to hurry and not to lose the masked man ahead of her.

This wasn't the first time that it had happened. There had been few other times before where she had found herself following the man, who always seemed to save her in the nick of time. Yet all the other times, she had either chickened out or her voice of reason had talked her out of it by reminding her of the unspoken rule.

Neither side was supposed to try and discover the other's civilian identity. Yet here she was following him again and this time she knew that she wouldn't stop until she not only knew where he lived, but who he was behind the mask and the magic that protected his identity. Because let's face it, if he didn't have the same kind of magic that she and the Senshi did, no white domino mask would have been enough to hide his identity from the determined blonde and her equally determined girlfriends.

If her father knew that his precious little girl was intentionally following a man home (because magic or no magic she was pretty he was no boy, but a real man like Motoki-onii-chan), he would have a hernia and a litter of kittens. No, knowing her overprotective father he'd hunt down the man with a shotgun and then after proceeding to shoot her caped hero, then he'd have the hernia and litter of kittens.

But she couldn't help herself. It wasn't that she actually wanted to know who he was under the mask. Okay, so maybe she did want to know, but only just a little.

No, the real reason why she was following him was to find something to make him less attractive, less desirable to her. Like a bad habit like picking his nose or leaving dirty underwear all over his apartment; or just about any other icky habit that was male-specific that could make a girl rethink her romantic intentions toward him.

Anything that would keep her from moving from hero-worshipping puppy love to falling in love with the man. Or if she was willing to be honest with herself, which she wasn't because that made her feel like a two-timing whore, she already was in love with the man and needed something to make her not be in love.

Although she had to admit it would probably take a lot to discourage her feelings. She was in love Chiba Mamoru, and the guy was always making fun of her and going out of his way to piss her off. He was a total jerk!

No, that wasn't true. He did have his some good qualities or she'd have never had fallen in love with him. She wasn't that superficial to fall in love with man based on how sexy he was and Mamoru was incredibly sexy. No girl in her right mind could deny that the man wasn't. Even Ami-chan, who seemed to more involved with her studies or her friends to notice men, couldn't deny the appeal of one Chiba Mamoru.

He had thick jet-black hair, that drove her insane because she had to fight back the urge to run her fingers through it and find out it if felt as silky as it looked. She could only imagine his reaction the day she was unable to suppress that particular urge and it wasn't positive. And as for his body? It was to die for. Wide shoulders, narrow hips, and firmly muscled legs and thighs; he whole appearance screamed black silk sheets, rose petals, champagne and lots of lots of hot, steamy sex.

But there was more to him then his sinfully sexy looks. From all her encounters with the man, he had shown intelligence and wit in all their arguments. And then there was his strength. Motoki-san had accidentally told her one day that Mamoru had been orphaned at a young age and had been on his own since then. It was at that moment when she truly began to admire and respect him, because he had found the strength to live on and to make it on his own after such a huge and terrible loss.

And even though they fought like cats and dogs on a daily basis, he had still come to her rescue. A few months ago she had been walking home at night because Haruna-sensai had been in an incredibly bad mood the whole day (which was caused by her boyfriend forgetting their one-month anniversary) and had given her a four-hour detention for sneaking a Hershey Kiss into her mouth during class (so sue her, she had been hungry and it wasn't like she had been sneaking her lunch again).

All she had wanted that night was to get home as fast as possible and spend an hour soaking in the tub before she was forced to leave the comforts of home again to fight another youma (something that had been occurring more frequently in the past few months). It was for that reason why she had taken a short cut through the park to reach her house faster, not even considering the safety risks.

Why should she? She was the pretty sailor-suited Senshi, Sailor Moon. She fought big scary X-rated porn movie reject youmas on a weekly basis. She could easily take on an ordinary person.

Or so she had thought.

When the two guys had grabbed her, she had struggled, but it wasn't enough. As a Senshi, she was stronger then she was in her civilian form when she transformed and she had discovered shortly after the start of super-heroine career that she retained some of this extra strength when she wasn't transformed. But she still wasn't as strong as Mako-chan, whose civilian form was as strong as Usagi's Senshi form. And to these two men she was just another high school studen, who had been stupid enough to walk into the park alone at night.

She had struggled and had tried to scream, but the third guy had appeared out of nowhere to help his companions. He smacked her and then gagged her with her own handkerchief. She had never been so scared in her life; not even facing youmas was as scary as the thought of what those men could do to her. Would do to her.

But they never got a chance.

She didn't why he had been there that night, nor had she cared later. All that mattered was that just as the third man had begun to raise her skirt, he had been there. It didn't take long from him to knock the three would-be-rapists unconscious. He had then picked her up and grabbed her bag before carrying her away from the knocked out men.

Mamoru had then proceeded to scold her about her foolishness and since he was right she had made no protest. It had been her arrogance in her powers that had caused her to almost get raped. He eventually set her on her feet and handed her bag to her, which she had then realized in her shocked daze was that they were in front of her house. She had no clue how he knew where she lived, but she figured that Motoki must have told him. The blonde-haired man was veritable fountain of information if one knew how to ask and when to ask (the prime time being when he was distracted with some task in the arcade so his mind was only focused enough on answering your question and not thinking about why the question was being asked in the first place).

She had thanked him and turned to leave, but he had grabbed her and pulled her back into his arms.

"It's okay to cry Usagi," Mamoru had whispered. "I won't tell anyone or tease you about it. I promise. So it's okay if you want to cry."

After he said that, she had let free of the thin control and had turned towards him as she broke down and cried for what could have happened. What almost did happen if he had not saved her. He just stood there holding her, whispering soothing things into ear until she could cry no more. And then he had taken his handkerchief and handed it to her, knowing she wouldn't want to use her own after what had happened.

"It's okay now," he had whispered into her ear. "You're safe now. I promise I'll never let anyone hurt you Usak- You better go inside. You're parents are probably worried. I'll wait here until you go inside."

Mamoru had then kissed her on the forehead and as promised waited until she had entered the house before leaving. She had never told her parents what had happened that night, making up story about tripping to explain any bruises that she had received during the attempted rape. Of course, Luna and the others knew since the bossy feline had demanded what had really happened to her ward. Damn cat seemed had better radar then her own mother when it came to sniffing out lies.

But it was after that night, that she really looked at Chiba Mamoru and began to fall in love with him. Which led her back to present.

She really shouldn't be following him home. Him being Tuxedo Kamen. It was wrong and it was breaking his trust, but damn it to hell he was causing all sorts of mixed emotions in her. There was no doubt in her mind that she loved Mamoru, but she also felt something for the mysterious masked man, which she was pretty damn sure that the emotion she felt for him was love.

And that was the dilemma. How could she be so fickle as to love two men with the same intense passion as she loved Tuxedo Kamen and Chiba Mamoru?

It just wasn't acceptable to her nor was it fair to either man although neither of them was aware of her feelings for them. Well maybe Tuxedo Kamen suspected that she had a crush on him, but she doubted that he knew that she loved him.

In any case, she couldn't live another day loving two men. It was tearing her apart. So there was only one course of action. To find something about one of the men to cause her to fall out of love. Out of the two, a relationship with Mamoru was more believable, even if at the moment they were mortal enemies.

There really wasn't any way that she could have a romantic involvement with Tuxedo Kamen since she couldn't let anyone find out that Sailor Moon was Klutz Queen a.k.a Tsukino Usagi.

So here she was following the man home, in hopes to find something to discourage her love for him and pray that she didn't get caught in the act.

She hid behind a tree and watched as he jumped up to a balcony of an apartment on the eighth floor. He then opened the sliding door and entered the apartment. After waiting for ten minutes, she jumped up to the eighth floor balcony and stealthily entered the apartment.

She moved with the catlike quietness through the room, which she realized was his bedroom, noting that his cape, jacket, hat, and mask had been thrown carelessly on the bed. Not something that she could count against him for doing. Fighting back the urge to fix the items so they lay neatly, she peaked out the bedroom door, which was slightly open, and into the empty living room.

She heard the clink of ice falling into a glass cup and realized that he was the kitchen. Although she was the Senshi of Mystery, which allowed her to move as quietly as cat and disappear as quickly and thoroughly into the shadows before you realized she was there, she still wasn't going to take a risk of him discovering her in his apartment. Until she found something to change her feelings, she was still in love with man and didn't want to have mad at her.

She then heard him muttering to himself and she grinned as she realized that he was complaining about the slut-like appearance of the recent youma. Her grin disappeared at his next words.

"Oh Usako, what am I going to do with you? You're always taking risks. You've got to let the Senshi get the youma's attention and then attack it. Argh. Sometimes I like to throttle you for being such a baka. But if you didn't take the risks you do, you wouldn't be the woman I love."

HE KNEW.

Tuxedo Kamen knew that she was Sailor Moon.

'_He must have followed me home one night and watched me detransform_,' she thought as she moved away from the door. '_How dare he_,' she demanded indignantly, ignoring the fact that she had followed him home or that he had called her 'little bunny' and revealed that he was in love with her.

She then heard the sound of a person sitting on a leather couch and moved toward the door to peak out again. Her mouth dropped as she saw the masked man on the couch for the first time without his mask.

'_Tuxedo Kamen is Chiba Mamoru_,' she thought with the calmness of a person who has had been thoroughly shocked to their core, as she stumbled away from the door and toward the balcony. In a daze, she jumped from the balcony and landed gracefully on the ground below. She then began running away as her mind kept repeating those same five words.

'_Tuxedo Kamen is Chiba Mamoru, Tuxedo Kamen is Chiba Mamoru, Tuxedo Kamen is Chiba Mamoru!_'

It then hit her.

'_Tuxedo Kamen is Chiba Mamoru is and he knows I'm Sailor Moon_,' she screamed mentally, pausing in her escape. From there her thoughts become murderous and bloodthirsty, but after working through her tempter tantrum she calmed down to realize that her problem was solved.

'_Thank goodness I'm not a fickle woman after all_,' she thought with relief. '_No wonder why I loved both of them. They were one in the same._'

She sighed, happy that dilemma was over and a grin appeared on her face, but soon disappeared as she remembered being called Usako and that he loved her.

'_All this time he had feelings for me and he never mentioned it once_,' she raged. '_Never revealed any hint that he cared in either of his aliases. And only Selene knows how long he's known that I was Sailor Moon. I bet he didn't have as many sleepless nights worrying about being in love with two different women!_' It never crossed her mind that he had only loved Tsukino Usagi, since she had loved him in both forms, it was only logical that he had loved both Tsukino Usagi and Sailor Moon before finding out they were one woman.

"Oh you're going to pay for all those sleepless nights over you, Chiba Mamoru," she whispered, looking back in the direction with a determined gleam in her eyes. "Just you wait. One way or another, you're going to pay."

* * *

_**Final Thought from Mamoru:**__  
__*sneezes* I must be catching a cold._

* * *

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE:**_

_The ages of the characters have been adjusted from what they were in the original anime/manga since Usagi's thought process in the story doesn't quite fit that of a 14-year old girl in junior high. Since the story has such a delicious open ending, I'll eventually write a multi-chapter sequel which should be filled with plenty of UST and comedy. _

_Also the final thought is a reference to a Japanese superstition that if you sneeze, then someone must be talking to you although our beloved Mamo-chan believes his sneeze to be caused by a possible cold and not a vengeful Usagi-chan._

* * *

_**-chan **__- suffix for a name that means family or close friend. may be offensive if you don't know that person well.__  
__**Senshi**__ - soldier, warrior, fighter__  
__**onii-chan**__ - a term to refer to one's older brother or an older male that one has a close friendship with.__  
__**youma**__ - monster; term used to refer to Season One monsters in the Sailor Moon series.__  
__**baka**__ - moron, idiot_

* * *

_**Disclaimer:**__ I do not claim any rights to Sailor Moon or the characters associated with the anime/manga. Those rights belong to Takeuchi Naoko and anyone else she says has rights to it._


End file.
